Monday TV Alert: The Third Reich's rise tears apart a German family in "The Mortal Storm" on TCM at 8 p.m. Eastern

"The Third Reich''s rise tears apart a German family."

The Mortal Storm, 1940, directed by Frank Borzage on Turner Classic Movies at 8 p.m. Eastern Monday night.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxltKn5NKuM

Film poster at: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/archive/viewer.jsp?contentId=140832

After I first saw this film about twenty years or so on TCM in the middle of the night, I could never look at actor Robert Young again in quite the same light, because he was SO believably creepy in this film that it literally made my skin crawl.

Plus, you had Nazis harassing pro-democracy Frank Morgan the year after he played the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, and chasing James Stewart, including his so-called best friend. Some friend!

I softened a bit on Young after finally seeing him co-star with Hedy Lamarr in the great under-rated classic -with about the most terrible film name ever!- H.M. Pulham, Esq., based on the 1930's best-seller I half-read while living in Evanston in the mid-'80's, after buying it at the Evanston Junior League shop.
But then everyone seemed more human and fallible around alluring Hedy.
They sure don't make 'em like her any more, that's for sure!
http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=110910&titleId=77194

Robert Young made Pulham with Hedy the year after making Storm with a young Robert Stack, whose films TCM is featuring today as part of their Summer Under the Stars promotion, wherein each day they feature an entire day's worth of films by one actor. http://www.tcm.com/2010/suts/index.jsp#/robertstack/8

http://www.tcm.com/2010/suts/index.jsp

This film has a dramatic ski chase-and-pursuit sequence with Jimmy and frequent co-star Margaret Sullavan that gives you a whole new appreciation for the justly-famous ski chase with Roger Moore as 007 in the beginning of The Spy Who Loved Me, but this one, in what is supposed to be the German Alps, takes place at night!

Bosley Crowther's June 21, 1940 film review in the New York Times is here:
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D06E3DC1E30E53ABC4951DFB066838B659EDE

http://www.tcm.com/index.jsp